


Won't You Help Me Feel Something Again?

by wordsbymeganmichael



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Killian gets hurt a lot, Too much backstory, Whump, neal's a dick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-12 07:49:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17463503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordsbymeganmichael/pseuds/wordsbymeganmichael
Summary: When Killian and Liam investigate the death of the wife of imprisoned mob boss Robert Gold, they get stuck in the middle of Gold family business. But Liam's partner, David Nolan, and his paramedic foster sister, Emma, come to his rescue. But will Emma help Killian do more than heal his body?





	Won't You Help Me Feel Something Again?

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the prompt post, “Please put me back. Please. If they know you helped me, they….they’ll hurt you too. Please. I can’t let you be hurt.”  
> And then--SURPRISE--I added too much backstory and made it terribly painful, physically and emotionally. Thanks for that, PMS. Excellent.  
> Title from the song "Sober Up" by AJR.

Killian leans his head back until it hits the surface he's laying on. He never thought he would be thankful for the hard, cold feel of concrete against his back, but in this moment, he can swear that it's the greatest thing he's ever felt.

He tries to open his eyes, but it turns out to be useless. All he sees are blurs around him, the piercing brightness of the lights above him, and he slowly closes them again.

He feels something touching him—some _one_ , a woman, with soft hands pressing lightly on his chest, his arms, his ribs, leaving throbbing pain in their wake.

It is not until he starts speaking that he notices the ringing in his ears, the blinding pain of his throat as he will the words to come.

“Please put me back,” he chokes out. “Please. If they know you helped me, they… they’ll hurt you too. Please. I can’t let you be hurt.” He may not know who she is, but he knows that, if she's here, she is in grave danger.

“ _Shhhh_.” He can't tell if her voice is quiet, or if he simply just can't hear her, but her words are a comfort even as her fingers find a particularly painful spot on his right side, where he must have a broken rib. “You are no longer in danger, Mr. Jones. We're here to help you.”

He tries to take a deep breath, but it causes a pain so deep that everything goes white, even with his eyes still closed. “Please,” he gasps again, trying his hardest not to move at all. “Please, just go. Just leave me. It's what I deserve.”

Her hands leave his body, and even with the searing pain they were bringing, he misses them immediately.

“I'm afraid I can't do that, Mr. Jones,” she says, calling him _that_ again, and he wants to correct her.

He's not Mr. Jones. He never has been. Liam was Mr. Jones, and Killian was always just _Killian_.

Mr. Jones is dead, and it's all Killian's fault.

“No,” is all he can muster, barely more than a breath, and after he feels the stab of the needle in his arm, his entire body goes numb, and he slips back into unconsciousness.

 

**_3 Months Before_ **

His hand curls around the coffee cup in front of him, scrolling through the newspaper on the screen in front of him one last time before he sends it to the printer. The clock on the wall behind him ticks the seconds away before it strikes midnight, and before it finishes its dozen chimes, he turns to the last page. By this point in the night, he is just copy editing, hoping that his interns have caught all the big mistakes, but a final once-over of the _Boston Globe_ has become part of his routine since he was just an intern ten years before.

The words almost stop losing meaning entirely as he scans the page from top to bottom, and he may have reached the bottom of the obituaries without actually reading a single word if he didn't see it.

_Milah Gold, 46, was found dead in her private home early Sunday morning, after passing soundly in her sleep the night before. All reports have confirmed natural causes. She and her husband, former Boston crime boss Robert Gold, who is still serving three consecutive life sentences, had one son, Neal Gold, 26. No funeral arrangements have been made public._

His coffee cup falls to the floor, shattering upon impact. It had been almost ten years since he last saw her, since he told her that she needed to choose between him and her husband and she picked her husband and never saw him again, even after Gold was convicted and sent to prison four years later. But it still hurt, seeing the words on the paper.

Forgetting the lateness of the hour, he grabs his phone from his desk and quickly calls his brother, holding the phone to his ear with his shoulder as he fetches the broom and a stack of paper towels from the supply closet outside his office.

Liam picks up on the third ring. “Fuck, Killian, do you know how late it is?”

“Why didn't you tell me about Milah?” Killian asks quicky, avoiding Liam's outburst.

“What?”

“You're a bloody Captain in the Boston Police Department, don't tell me you hadn't already heard.”

“Of course I heard! I thought you hadn't spoken to her in years, so I figured it didn't matter to you anymore.”

“‘ _Didn't matter to me_ ’? Bloody hell, brother, do you really think I'm that shallow? You should have at least given me a heads up so I didn't have to learn it by proofing the fucking obituaries.” Much harder than necessary, Killian drops half the pile of paper towels on top of the spill, trying to soak up some of the coffee using the sole of his black boot.

“Jesus, Killian, I'm sorry.”

Sweeping it all in the dustpan, Killian dumps the paper towels and shattered pieces of ceramic into the trash can and takes a deep breath, hearing his brother do the same on the other end of the line before they both fall silent, Killian able to hear the crackle of the police radio in the background.

“Is that all you called me to ask?” Liam asks, his voice soft. He must know what's coming.

“Are you on a stake out?” Killian asks, trying to discern who else may be around for this conversation.

“Aye, but it's just with David. What's on your mind?”

“The paper reports natural causes, but is that really the truth?”

“Killian, you know I can't discuss that—” he tries, but Killian cuts him off.

“You wouldn't have asked if you didn't know it was coming.”

He hears Liam sigh and can see the way he must be scratching at his beard.

“If I hear about any of this in the papers, I'll personally come and arrest you,” Liam says after a moment, and Killian rolls his eyes.

“Yes, yes, of course, Liam. We've been over this all before.”

“It's being investigated. She has been sick for a while, though, you know that, so we do have reason to believe that it was actually natural causes.”

“But will you—will you let me know if you find anything? Not for the paper, of course, just so I… so I know that there was nothing I could have done to save her.”

“Killian, you can't do this to yourself. Not again, please,” his brother begs, and Killian rests his forehead on his desk.

Hell, he should have listened to Liam. If he did, maybe they wouldn't have gotten in this mess in the first place.

Maybe Liam would still be alive.

 

**_Two weeks later_ **

Killian looks down at his phone for what feels like the thousandth time in ten minutes, sitting in the back corner of Liam's favorite coffee shop.

Nothing.

Unlocking the screen, he reads the last message he received from Liam just half an hour before.

**Liam: Being followed. Need to talk abt MG. Meet me for coffee in 20.**

Twenty minutes has come and gone with no sign of Liam. For the first time ever, Killian is glad he opted for decaf tea instead of his high-caffeine. He's already jittery enough without it, he can only imagine how quickly his heart would be pounding with the added assistance of a stimulant.

The bell over the door rings, and Killian's head shoots up so quickly something in his back pops. It's not Liam, no, but if there's a “next best thing,” this is it: David Nolan, his partner.

“Killian,” David breathes, trying to catch his breath as he slides into the chair across the table from him. “Where is he? I was halfway across town and got here as quickly as I could.”

All Killian can do is shrug, shake his head, and close his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Fuck, this is _not_ good.”

Killian unlocks his phone again, showing David the last message from his brother. “Is this the same message you got?”

David reads it over quickly, then nods up at Killian. “Same gist, at least.”

“It was _him,_ wasn't it?” Killian asks, leaning forward on his elbows to voice his concern to David, the very worst-case-scenario scenario that has been bouncing around Killian's mind since Liam failed to show up.

“We don't know that, Killian. We can't make any assump—”

But when Killian's phone begins to ring, a picture of he and Liam from when they were younger showing up on the screen, David's words stop abruptly.

At first, neither of them move.

“Well?” David asks after the first two rings.

“But what if—”

“Just answer the damned phone, Jones.”

So he does.

“Hello?” he asks, praying to hear his brother's voice on the other end of the line.

He shouldn't be so lucky.

“Ah, Mr. Jones. How nice for you to answer. We have your brother.” The voice is most definitely not his brother's. It sounds somewhat familiar to him, but he can't place it.

“Bloody hell, what do you want? Just let him go, I can—”

The voice on the other side laughs, an eerily familiar sound that he immediately recognizes, but he knows that can't be right. He would recognize Robert Gold's laugh anywhere, but he would also recognize his voice.

“You can _what_ , exactly, Jones? You're a newspaper editor, for Christ's sake. There is nothing you can do for me that I can't do on my own.”

As if to make matters worse, he hears Liam in the background, screaming, “Just get out, Killian! Run while you can!” followed by the solid _thunk_ of something making contact with his face.

“Then what do you want with Liam?”

“All I _want_ is to prove a point. This is what happens when you try to mess with the wrong people. Keep your ink-stained nose out of other people's damn business, or you're going to lose much more than just your brother.”

“Just let him go!” he tries, but he's only met with more laughter.

“Say goodbye to your brother, Captain!” he says, followed by another laugh.

“Damn it, no!” Killian cries, just as he hears,

“Good bye, Mr. Jones.”

There's the unmistakable sound of a gunshot on the other end of the line, and then silence.

“No!” Killian yells, much louder than necessary in the coffee shop, and the few people around him turn their heads to him, but he holds his head in his hands, elbows on the table. “No,” he says again, barely more than a whisper as he feels his throat begin to restrict.

“What did they say?” David asks, reaching out to rest his hand against Killian's arm. “Who was it?”

“They—they have him. They took him, and they— _Jesus Christ_ , I think they killed him.”

“They _what_?!”

“There was a gunshot, and I think—I'm pretty sure they killed him.”

Killian has no idea how the words are coming out so calmly, his entire body going numb at the thought of Liam being gone, and when his phone buzzes on the table between them, he makes no move to answer it, his eyes going wide as he stares at it.

When David realizes that Killian is not going to see what the notification is, he grabs the phone himself, and Killian watches as his eyes narrow then fly open, widening still as he sets the phone back on the table.

“Holy shit,” he mumbles, then turns his face up to Killian's for just a moment. “I have to—I have to step outside.”

This confuses Killian, intrigues him, and though he knows he shouldn't, he picks up the phone. After fifteen years of crime reporting, Killian has seen more than enough gruesome crime scene photos, and he knows that David has spent most of his time on the force as a homicide detective.

Apparently, nothing could prepare either of them for the picture of Liam that Killian received. If Killian wasn't sure that it was his brother, he never would have recognized his face, torn to bloody pieces, both of his eyes swollen, chunks of skin missing from his cheeks and his shoulders, his only recognizable feature being the bird tattoo on his shoulder, which looks like its been wiped off specifically for identification.

And there, right above his heart, at the very bottom of the picture, is the wound left behind by the bullet Killian heard on the phone.

Killian barely makes it out the door of the coffee shop before he empties the contents of his stomach in the alley just beyond the doorway.

Liam was gone. Liam, his only family since he was ten years old and his mother died, was dead.

And it was because of him.

 

\--- --- ---

 

Five days later, Killian wakes up with a start, his body sticky with sweat and clinging to the sheets, exactly the same way he's woken up each time since he realized that his actions led to the death of his brother.

But this time, it's different. This time, he has realized something, and his hand fumbles around his bedside table, searching for his phone in the dark of the room.

Once he finds it, he calls David.

It takes four rings for him to answer his phone, his voice thick with sleep, and he hears his wife, Mary Margaret, in the background, trying to make sure everything is okay.

“I know who it was, David.”

“What?”

“The voice from the phone call. It's been ten years since I last saw him, but it had to be him, its the only thing that makes sense.”

“Who? Who do you think it was?”

“Not think, Dave. I _know_. It has to be him. The—the investigation, the laughter, the brutality, it's all him.”

“ _Who_ , Killian?” David insists, and Killian can tell from the noise in the background that he's getting out of bed, already amped up with the knowledge that Killian might know who killed Liam.

“Gold,” Killian says, as if it makes all the sense in the world.

“Robert Gold is in jail. You know that.”

“No, no, no, not Robert Gold. His son. Milah’s son, Neal.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“He's always hated me. He blamed me for his parent's separation, even though she went back to him in the end. And it would explain how he has the same laugh as Robert Gold, if it's his son.”

David groans on the other end of the line, then sighs. “ _I can't believe I'm saying this,_ ” he mumbles. “Meet me at the station. If you're right, Killian—and I hope you're right, I really do—then we might be able to stop this once and for all.”

After the fastest shower Killian's ever taken, just trying to wash the layer of sweat off his body, Killian pulls on jeans and one of Liam's Boston PD t-shirts, laces up his boots, and grabs his leather jacket on the way out the door.

He pushes through the door at the bottom of the steps, making sure it locked behind him before stepping away from it— one of many things he's learned from Liam over the years— but before he can make it to his car, something makes contact with the back of his head, and he is unconscious before he can hit the pavement.

  
\--- --- ---

 

When Killian's eyes shoot open, all he knows is pain. His head is throbbing, the edge of his vision blurring with the pounding of his heart. He is hanging from something, chains circling his arms down to the elbows, keeping him inches from the ground. His arms are numb, and when he tries to move his shoulders, every nerve from the base of his skull down screams out in agony.

He takes in as much of a breath as he can until his muscles begin to fight back, his throat burning, his chest, his lungs.

_Fuck._

Trying to keep as still as he can, he focuses on the beating of his heart, willing it to slow down, but just as he begins to have control of it, the metal doors to his left crash open, brightening the room even more and undoing any of the calm Killian was trying to settle over his body.

“Hello, Mr. Jones,” the man says, the same voice from the phone call, and Killian's hunch and greatest fear are confirmed at the same time.

Standing before him, a baseball bat slung over one shoulder, is Neal Gold, aged ten years since the last time Killian saw him, but there is no doubt about who he is.

“Neal,” he chokes out, trying his damndest to smile at the boy.

Well, he was a boy ten years ago, sixteen years old and a vendetta for Killian. He's not much of a boy anymore.

“How nice to see you again.”

The smile Never shoots back at him is much more smug than the one Killian attempts. “I can assure you, the pleasure of this situation is all mine.” Neal just stares at him, unmoving.

Killian tries to swallow, his mouth gone bone dry, but all that he finds is a burning, searing pain instead of relief.

“What do you want, Neal?” Killian asks finally, but Neal stands in front of him for a few more moments, his head cocked to the side, a terrifying smile on his face.

“What do I want?” he repeats, his eyes piercing holes into Killian's soul until he turns on his heel and begins pacing in front of where Killian is hanging. “What _do_ I want?” he says again, this time as if he is actually asking himself the question. “Well, you see, Killian—” He swings back to face Killian, eyes blown wide with madness. “I'm assuming it's okay if I call you Killian now, enough with the formality? You always did try to insist I stop calling you 'Mr. Jones,’ but I just couldn't bring myself to do it, with you fucking my mom and tearing apart my family and all.”

When Killian doesn't answer, his jaw grinding together apparently the only movement that doesn't hurt, Neal just nods his head a few times, then begins pacing again.

“Anyway, _Killian_ , what I want is to put you through the same pain that you put me through. But while mine has been fifteen years in the making, you will be getting yours in much, much less time than that.”

Before Killian can object, Neal shoulders the baseball bat, then swings it at his ribs, making contact with a sickening crunch.

“Neal, please,” he begs, his voice barely a whimper, but Neal just shoulders the bat again, this time hitting just below his hip bone. “Please, you don't—you don't have to do this.”

“You split up my parents!” Neal yells, articulating the last word with a blow that lands just below his ribs, and the bat clatters to the floor. “You made her leave him!” Now, he articulates his words with his fists, reaching up with this one to reach his face, and it takes only a few moments for Killian's mouth to fill with blood. “You helped send him to prison!” Right in the middle of his sternum. “And you _killed her_!” His fist lands exactly where the first blow from the bat did, and if his ribs didn't break before they certainly did now.

“Neal, none of that is true,” he manages, his voice nowhere near as weak as he feels, somehow. But his words come slowly, and he has to take a quick, deep breath every few words to keep from passing out. “Your parents were already separated when I met your mother. That had nothing to do with me. She already left him when we met.”

“That's not what my father said!”

“Your father beat her half to death one night. Sent her to the hospital. She was under police protection when I met her. Doing a story on your father.”

“You are a god damned _liar_!” Killian's not expecting Neal's fist to collide with his face again, and he has to spit some of the blood in his mouth on to the floor to continue.

“You can believe what you want, Neal, but I loved your mother, and I only wanted the best for her. But in the end, she picked you. I told her she had to decide between me and Gold, and she said she couldn't leave you. And I accepted that.”

“You still helped put my father in jail!”

“Your father would have gone to jail without my help. Everything I did was for his last conviction, the last of his life sentences. He would still be serving two without the assistance I offered the police.”

“You killed my mother!” he cries out, but instead of in anger, Killian realizes that Neal has quickly broken down and watches as a tear slides down his cheek.

“How do you figure?”

“You left her! To die of a broken heart! There was no one left to protect her, and she died! Because of you!”

Suddenly, Neal reaches under his jacket and pulls out something, though it takes a few moments for Killian to clear the haze covering his vision and realize that it's a pistol.

“Neal, no, wait, I—I told you, your mother left _me_ , told me I had to leave her alone, never see her again—”

“Excuses!” Neal screams, his voice echoing off the thick concrete walls, and he watches in terror as he raises the pistol to Killian's temple, standing just on the edge of his periphery. “That's all you have in you, Killian. Excuses and _lies_!”

“Neal, no!” he cries out, and everything goes black.   


\--- --- ---

 

“Killian,” he hears, though it sounds far away, like he's drowning, listening through water.

With all the pain his body is in, nothing would really surprise him anymore.

“Killian, god damn it, come back to me!” There are hands on his chest, something pressing above his heart, a sharp pain in his ribs—

And light.

His eyes fly open, his vision suddenly much clearer than the last few times he tried to see.

But he's still not sure that it's real. Sure, every bone, every nerve, every inch of his body hurts, but the vision before him is too perfect to exist anywhere beyond his dreams.

“There he is,” she says, her golden ponytail falling down over her shoulder, and the smile that spreads across her face just _proves_ to him that he must be dreaming.

Or worse.

But when she turns and yells out, “David! He’s back!” and he goes to move, pain shoots down his spine, a searing light that turns his vision white.

With pain like that, he can't be dreaming. Or dead.

That's good, at least. Or something like that.

She turns back to him, her green eyes bright. “I'm gonna give you something for the pain, okay?” she asks, holding up a syringe, and he nods, barely feeling the needle slip under his skin.

“Killian, Christ, are you okay?”

Killian can't help but laugh at the obscenity of this question, but he only lets out a huff before his entire body fights back. “That's a terrible question, Nolan,” he mumbles as strongly as he can, though he's fairly sure it just makes him sound weak.

“Careful, Jones, your ribs are broken,” the woman comments, half-smiling at him from behind David.

“Oh, that must be why it hurts when I laugh.”

David laughs, poising himself to clap Killian on the shoulder, changes his angle to hit his leg before he decides he's better off just to leave him untouched, holding his hands up in surrender.

“You're right. You look terrible, but you're alive.”

“Aye,” he says, trying to smile, but he's pretty sure his jaw is broken. “Though would someone do me the honor of explaining… how?”

“When you didn't show up at the station, I tried calling you a few times before I remembered that Liam had that “Find My iPhone” thing on his computer for your phone and his, but you must have dropped you when they picked you up, since it was sitting on the sidewalk next to your car.

“But then I remembered what you said about Neal Gold, so I looked at few things up about him back at the station. There were a bunch of warehouses in his name, half a dozen of them, and five of them were legitimate, housing stuff for his business, but when we raided the last one, we found a bunch of guards sitting in one of the rooms, including Neal, and then you were in the next room, hanging from the damned ceiling and I thought you were dead. But the paramedics showed up in just a few minutes, and this one here,” he says, wrapping his arm around the blonde angel standing next to him. “She worked her magic and brought you back.”

“Oh, come on, David,” she says, the apples of her cheeks reddening at his compliment. “Science is what healed him, medicine. Any paramedic could have done that.”

“Aye, maybe,” Killian tries, and this time when he smiles at her, it doesn't hurt nearly as much; whatever she gave him was starting to work. “But you did it, love. If David says you saved me, then I am forever in your debt.”

“That seems like a bit of an exaggeration there, Jones,” she says, but smiles at him again.

“Can I at least have the name of my savior?”

“Emma,” she breathes, turning around to see where David is behind her. “Emma Swan. I'm David's foster sister.”

“Well, Emma Swan,” he says, staring up at her as she continues to search his body for damage. “I _am_ indebted to you. Now, can you tell me all that that bastard did to me?”

 

Four broken ribs. Three on the left, one on the right, the worst one practically shattered from the impact from the baseball bat. A severe concussion. A broken jaw. Severe internal bleeding. A fractured femur. A dislocated hip. Two dislocated—and severely bruised—shoulders. And one with a bullet lodged in the muscle.

Eleven surgeries.

Killian heals. Slowly, painfully, but he heals nonetheless.

Three times a week, David shows up after his patrol with a newspaper and a cinnamon bun from Liam's favorite bakery. They talk for as long as Killian can manage before his pain meds knock him out again, hitting all the big subjects: baseball scores, big cases, David's wife's pregnancy.

And David's visits are almost the best parts of Killian's weeks.

Almost.

The only thing better is the days when Emma stops by Killian's room after her shifts, a cup of Earl Grey tea from the cafeteria and a smile, the brightest and most glorious thing he swears he has ever seen. At first, she would just stay for a few minutes, just checking in on his healing.

But then, she starts to stay. She brings food, needing to eat after her shifts and opting to do it with him. Once—and he thinks it’s a turning point for them—she shows up after a twelve-hour overnight shift with breakfast sandwiches for both of them, then dozes off in the chair beside him as he watches game show reruns. It’s not until he turns to her to make a joke about Richard Dawson’s need to kiss everyone that he realizes she has fallen asleep, her head back against the wall and her arms crossed over her chest.

In this moment, with a soft smile spreading across her peaceful face, Killian realized that he’s falling in love with her.

 

\--- --- ---

 

After five weeks, he’s allowed to leave. Sure, he’s on a _lot_ of pain meds, he’s not allowed to drive, and he’s staying at David’s apartment, but he’s out of the bloody hospital.

It’s at least a start.

In David’s car on the way home, spread out across the back seat with Emma in the passenger seat, Killian asks the only thing that’s been on his mind for the past few weeks, too afraid— _ashamed?_ —to even ask.

“What happened to Liam's body?” he says softly, and neither of them answer at first, making him think that he didn’t actually say it, or they just didn’t hear him.

Until he watches them look at each other, sharing a glance that Killian thinks they didn’t want him to see, especially the distressed look on Emma’s face.

“David?” he asks when neither of them move to respond, but it’s Emma that turns around and sets her hand on his arm.

“We, uh,” David tries, running his hand over his face. “He was so marred, almost beyond recognition. You—you saw the picture, Killian. And you were already in such distress, we were trying to let you heal, so we had to decide what to do and we—we had him cremated.”

Killian leans his head back against the leather headrest, closing his eyes as he lets out a long sigh.

“Good,” he breathes, and when he opens his eyes again, Emma is softly smiling at him from the passenger seat, but her smile doesn’t make it to her sad, green eyes.

 

The day they decide to put Liam to rest, it’s overcast. Killian feels like it must be some sort of sign, standing on the dock between David and Emma, David's arm around his shoulder and Emma's hand clasped around his own, the jar of Liam's ashes in his arm.

Liam always loved the sea, always wanted to grow old and pass away asleep on the deck of their fishing ship.

Yeah, he should be so lucky.

“Here she is,” Killian says, looking out on the water where the _Jewel of the Realm_ is docked. “Liam's pride and joy. The _Jewel of the Realm_.”

Emma's hand tightens around his, leaning into his side.

“Do you want to take her out?” David asks after a moment, thankfully pulling Killian out of his head, wrapped up in the sound of the water lapping against the side of the boat.

“What?” he asks, turning towards David.

“Do you want to take the boat out on the water? Or just… get on her, I don't know how to word that?”

“No, we can… We can take her out,” he says, the words coming out slowly.

“Are you sure?” He expects the question to come from David, but it doesn't; it comes from Emma, and when he turns to her, the brightness of her eyes in contrast to the greyness of the day is the beacon of light that he needs in his day.

At that moment, he thinks she loves her more than ever before.

If only he could tell her.

“Aye,” he breathes, releasing Emma's hand to reach out and remove the lock. “It's only right.”

They do take her out, only a few hundred feet, making sure they don't lose sight of the lights above the docks through the mist, and shut off the engine.

He holds Liam in his arms, the jar growing cold against Killian's touch.

There's a metaphor in there somewhere, he knows it, about his dead brother and the life leaving him. If he could think about anything other than the last picture he saw of his brother, beaten and battered at the hands of Neal Gold, then maybe his muse would work enough to create it.

But no. All he can see beyond the lifeless horizon stretched out in front of him is that last picture that Neal sent him, Liam barely recognizable from the damage that his face and his torso took.

“You didn't deserve any of this,” he says softly, turning his eyes down to the gold jar he's cradling in his arms.

(He knows its an urn, but there's just something about that word that he _hates_ , that makes him have to swallow the bile that rises up his throat, have to shake off the shudder that inches its way down his back.)

“You were always a much better man than I was, brother. You were the one who deserved to live, who didn't bury yourself in the past. I should never—I should never have asked you to look into her death.” He feels his breath grow shaky, unable to stop the tears that gather in his eyes, especially once the wind blows in off the water and into his face. Even if he wanted to, he's not sure that he could. “All of this is my fault,” he says finally, and the dam breaks as he falls to his knees on the deck, still holding the jar against his body as if his life depended on it.

(In this moment, it just might be the only thing tying him back to the deck. The feel of the jar in his arms, and the hands on his shoulders, one David's and one Emma's, both standing silently behind him as he is able to grieve for the first time.)

“It's all my fault,” he says again, allowing the tears to fall down his face, his sobs so deep that they cause his entire body to rock. “I'm sorry, brother. I've let you down.”

“Oh, Killian,” Emma sighs, and he realizes that she has knelt down next to him, and all he can do is turn to her, tears still running down his cheeks. She wraps her arms around him, pulling his face into her shoulder, and he feels David gently pull the jar out of his arms before hugging him from behind, also now kneeling on the deck behind him.

Most of his life, his brother has been all he had, after their father left when Killian was just a toddler and their mother died when Killian was twelve, leaving him and eighteen-year-old Liam completely alone. When he realized that he had cost Liam his life, he had convinced himself that he had lost the only family he had left.

But being here, between David and Emma on the greyest, gloomiest day he could remember, on the deck of he and Liam's ship as he said goodbye to his brother for the last time, Killian realizes that maybe, even though Liam is gone, he doesn't have to be alone anymore.

It takes a few minutes for Killian to realize that Emma and David are crying, too, grieving for his brother just as he is, and somehow, that becomes a comfort to him, allowing him to begin to calm. Killian is the first one to stand, the hardwood of the deck doing its damage on his already damaged body, and Emma and David follow suit, smiling at each other as they wipe the tears from their windburned eyes.

They had decided earlier not to put all of Liam in the water, leave some of him to rest on the _Jewel_ , the place where he was truly the happiest, so when the wind dies down, Killian nods to both of them, unscrewing the lid and dumping some of the ashes into the wind.

“Your brother was a damned good man, Jones,” David says, none of them taking their eyes off of where the ashes were taken away by the wind, but he wraps his arm around Killian's shoulder nonetheless. “But he never would have followed through with the investigation if he hadn't believed you were right. You know that, right?”

Killian turns to face his friend, pulling his eyes away from the waves, and though the best he can do is _attempt_ a smile, it's better than nothing. “Thank you, Dave. That—that means more to me than you may ever know.”

He may not be okay right now, and he doesn't really expect it in the near future, but at this moment he can sense it may be possible, on a distant horizon, and that's just the start he needs.

 

\--- --- ---

 

Sitting at the counter in his apartment later that week, the only thing he wants to do is drink. He wants to pick up his bottle of Captain, finish it, and wake up from the nightmare his life has become. Because none of this can be real.

He just came here to grab some of his belongings, the presence of Liam still too real to be dealt with yet, but he could only go so long without his own clothing, his own belongings, his laptop, his _work_.

Besides, while David and Mary Margaret insisted it was fine, there were only two and a half months left until their baby is due, and it was going to need the nursery they had almost finished furnishing when David moved Killian's spare bed in.

He would have to move out of there by some point.

“Want to tell me what's on your mind?” Emma asks, and he realizes that she must have been watching him as he got lost in his own head. Again.

Turning to her, his lips pull themselves into a momentary smile, and he reaches across the counter to take her hand.

He hasn't told her how he feels, afraid that once one emotion comes out, everything that's hidden behind it will also come tumbling. But the time they have spent together can't mean nothing to her. She hasn't turned away to touches like this, has even initiated many of them on her own. Holding his hand, touching his cheek, even falling asleep with his arm around her on David's couch a few times since he came home from the hospital two weeks before.

If he ever doubted it before, he knew for certain by now that he was incredibly, terrifyingly in love with her, with the way she joked with him, unafraid of being herself even around him as he healed; with how she would pull the whole onion out of her onion ring on the first bite then slowly eat the rest of the batter; with how together she could look before going to her shift, no matter what time of day it started, and with the way you could tell she was exhausted when she came home but never ceased to take his breath away with her beauty.

“I'm going to need a new apartment,” he replies, needing to tear his eyes away from hers before he said something he would come to regret, so he turns away from her to face the living room. “The ghost of my brother can haunt the _Jewel_ as much as he likes, but I don't think I could stand living in an apartment where he lingered around every corner.”

“There's an open apartment in my building,” she says, and he turns back around to face her just as the edge of her cheeks begin to darken with embarrassment. “Mine and David's,” she tries to correct before taking a quick sip out of the glass of water in front of her. “It's closer to your office, too.”

“If you wanted me closer to you, darling, all you had to do was ask,” he teases, but it only makes her blush grow deeper.

“You wish,” she replies, trying to sound as cool as she can, but he can tell the effect he's had on her.

So he leans across the counter between them, the edge digging painfully into one of the bruises still healing on his ribs, and smiles at her. “Perhaps I do,” he whispers, but before she can respond, he turns away from her, crossing the living room in a few long strides and entering his bedroom to collect his things.

 

The ride back to the apartment building is a quiet one, Killian finally deciding to check his work email as Emma drives, and then she insists on carrying his duffel bag to the elevator, arguing that too much strain on his shoulder will keep it from healing.

She's a paramedic. She would know.

He doesn't even try to argue with her, but for some reason, once they get into the elevator, the air around them changes, turning into something heated, electrical, and Killian swears if he were to reach out and touch the metal walls, sparks would fly. But he doesn't try, doesn't do anything but stare straight ahead as the numbers above the door count up to six, and follow her out the door and to David and Mary Margaret's apartment.

When Emma lets herself in, they find them sitting on the couch, Mary Margaret's head resting on a pillow in David's lap, something on the TV but looking only at each other, talking soft enough that they can't hear from the door. They both have their hands on her baby bump, and whatever they're discussing, they don't realize Emma and Killian are there until he closes the door behind him. They both snap their heads towards the door, noticeably worried for a moment until they realize who it is, but Emma just rolls her eyes and walks around them to the spare bedroom, dropping the duffel bag on the bed and spinning towards Killian as he deposits the rest of his belongings beside it.

“Want to go out to dinner?” she asks, the words tumbling out of her like a waterfall, and at first, his eyes go wide, eyebrows shooting up his forehead. It's practically the first thing she has said to him since their conversation at his apartment, and though he desperately wants to know what brought the thought about, he does not want to turn her down.

“Of course,” he says, trying not to sound too thrilled by her asking. “Just the two of us?”

Emma blushes again, pushing her blonde curls behind her ear.  “Yeah. Just—just the two of us, if that's okay?”

“Of course, love. And I'm not complaining, but might I ask what brings this about?”

“They just… look so peaceful out there, and they haven't really had a moment to themselves for a while, so I want to give them that.”

 _Oh_ , he can't help but think. It has nothing to do with him and everything to do with the burden he's put on her brother.

She must see the change in his face, since she steps closer to him, smiling up at him through her lashes as she sets her hand on his arm. “Not that I don't want to spend time with you.” Her voice is soft and so sincere that it can't be a lie. “That's just a bonus.”

He returns her smile, slowly reaching up to cup her cheek in his hand, running his thumb across it. “Let me get changed,” he says, and her smile widens against his palm.

“Perfect. Me, too. I'll meet you at my apartment?” she asks, and all he has to do is nod before she turns away from him, closing the door behind her. He hears her through the door as she tells David and Mary Margaret about their plans for the night, hears Mary Margaret as she tries to argue with Emma, but knows that Emma comes out victorious since there's no reason for them to turn her down.

Because she's right. Since Killian was taken to the hospital— _hell_ , probably since Killian first told his brother his theory about Neal Gold, David hasn't had much time to spend with his wife. Late nights at the precinct are enough on their own, then add in the extra time David has been spending with Killian, first in the hospital and now that he's living in their apartment, and Killian realizes just how much the Nolan's have done for him.

How much they continue to do.

He decides that within the next few days, he'll start looking for a new apartment, maybe even looking into the one in this building, especially if things go well with Emma. Carefully buttoning up his black shirt, he realizes that maybe he should talk to David about dating his sister before he actually tries to do it. Of course, Emma is her own person, is free to date whoever she wants—he can almost hear the way she would argue with them about it—but he still feels the need to at least inform the man whose apartment he's living out of that he plans to ask out his sister. Maybe even do it tonight.

He comes out of the bedroom, his new bag of toiletries in hand, but David meets him before he can make it to the bathroom.

“Is this a date?”

He can't tell by the look in his eyes what he wants the answer to be, if it's an innocent question or an interrogation.

But since Killian doesn't know the answer himself, it's not really that big of a deal.

“I—I don't think so.”

“How do you not know?”

“She just asked about going to dinner. I didn't ask her to define what exactly she meant by it.”

“Do you want it to be a date?”

Somehow, this question seems more dangerous than the first.

Killian can't stop his hand from flying up, his fingers finding the spot behind his ear that somehow always itches when he's faced with an embarrassing situation. “I… yes, I do.”

He tries to say it as strongly as he can, only faltering at first, but when David's face fails to respond at first, he's momentarily terrified that somehow, he's chosen the wrong answer.

Until David's face breaks out into a wide grin and he wraps his arms around him in a hug, which takes Killian a second to reciprocate.

“That's excellent, Jones! She likes you, you know? And I had a feeling you liked her, too.”

“Well, you were right.”

 

It's only a few more minutes until Killian is standing outside the door to her apartment, two floors up from David and Mary Margaret's, his hair combed back, teeth brushed, extra deodorant applied.

When she answers the door, she's in lighter jeans than usual, and a tight black sweater, her hair up in a high ponytail.

“I'm not quite ready yet,” she says, never stopping once she opens the door to let him in, heading first for the bathroom for just a few moments before rushing out of there and into the bedroom. “Make yourself comfortable! I'll just be another minute or two.”

He tries to sit on the couch, he really does. But it does not last for more than a few moments, the adrenaline from his conversation with David still coursing through his body, and he stands up once more and begins a slow sweep of her living room. She doesn't have much in the way of decoration, just a few pictures, mostly of herself and David and a few with Mary Margaret in the mix, some with other people that she thinks must be coworkers. Against one wall, she has a shelf full of books, an odd mixture of classics, poetry books, and medical journals. He is still browsing the titles when she emerges from her room once more, her hair now hanging down over her shoulders, her lips stained a bright red, and black ankle boots on her feet.

“Ready?” she asks, coming up behind him at the bookshelf, and he turns to find her a few inches taller than normal because of her heels, close enough to him that he can see the flecks of gold in her eyes.

“Ready,” he responds, trying to hide the fact that his throat has gone dry, and she picks up her red leather jacket and leads him out the door.

She picks a restaurant not far from the apartment, a small Italian place that's not too fancy, but that serves more than just pizzas and sandwiches. After just a few minutes, the waiter comes to take their order, and she gets the seafood scampi while he settles on chicken marsala.

When the menus are gone from between them and Killian can finally focus on the way the low lights of the restaurant compliment her face, he leans across the table towards her, making sure to keep his folded hands just beyond contact with hers.

“Do you want to know something interesting?” he asks and waits for her to look back at him before he continues. “Before I left the apartment, your brother asked if we were going on a date.”

“What did you tell him?” she responds, almost too quickly, also leaning in towards him.

As cooly as he can, he shrugs. “I told him it was just dinner, a chance to give them some time to themselves.”

“Oh,” is all she says, leaning back in her chair.

He pauses for a moment, then continues. “But then he asked if I _wanted_ it to be a date, which I thought was a little weird.”

“And?” He can almost hear the way her breath catches with the word, searching his face for some sort of answer.

He smiles, leaning as far towards her as he can without getting out of his seat. “I said I did.”

She smiles back, finally, reaching between them to cover his hands with her own. “Good,” she breathes.

“What about you?”

“Jury's still out,” she jokes, but squeezes both of his hands, her smile growing.

Dinner passes quickly, both of them revealing more about themselves than they somehow had already in the months they've known each other, definitely more than they've ever revealed on a date before, especially a first date.

But it didn't feel like a first date. After all the weeks they had been spending together, first in the hospital and then not, it feels almost as far from a first date as a first date can get.

But when they get back to her apartment and he slides his lips against hers, pressing her back against the door, tasting the white wine and tiramisu on her lips? That's about as good as a first kiss can be, both soft and passionate, and Killian uses it to tell her everything he hasn't been able to over the last few months, how grateful he is for every moment she decided to spend with him, how important she had become to his healing process.

When they finally part, the remainder of her lipstick smeared across their swollen lips, his bright blue eyes blown wide, all he can do is say her name, breathing it against her lips, against her skin.

But she breathes something very different: “ _Please_.” It's a request for more, asking him to stay beside her, but most of all, it's a plea to take her to bed, to do something about all of the feelings they have had to ignore.

He gives her everything she wants and _more_ , thanking her in as many ways as he can think of before slowly, _finally_ filling her, his body crying out in more ways than one, and he lets her take control of them, as gentle as she can be as she returns what he gave her as well as she can.

He wakes up beside her in the morning, a tangled mess of sheets and pillows and bodies, and he can swear that he's never been happier in his life, even with all the horror that brought them together.

“I love you,” he whispers against her hair, pulling her closer to him, and he believes her to still be asleep until she groans, leaning into the warmth of his body and whispering it back, pulling his hand to her mouth to gently kiss it.

“Now go back to sleep.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Come talk to me on tumblr, if you want: thejollyroger-writer


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